


Utterly Professional

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:50:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1625156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fox and the wolf were over the hills and far away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Utterly Professional

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Mr. Weekend, sounding board extrordinaire.
> 
> Written for marchingjaybird

 

 

 

 

**The Year of Our Lord, 1967:**

Having received no commissions since the Tuscan monestary job (which had not been well-paid: cardinals are notoriously protective of their coffers), Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar had toured the undercities of the world for close to four hundred and fifty years. They had found Russia delightful, though the warlords in Moscow Below seemed not to need any assistance dismembering their own people at the drop of a hat. Egypt and Baghdad were full of mysteries, riches and wonderful beasts as they had been a thousand years ago: Mr. Vandemar had killed a gryphon while Mr. Croup had carefully smashed each and every enchanted glass dancer in Caliph al-Rasheed's possession. San Francisco was too newly formed to have developed an undercity of its own when they arrived at the beginning of the twentieth century, but Rio de Janeiro had proved to be a veritable cornucopia of forgotten humans ready to suffer, both Above and Below.

Now, they decided, it was time to settle down. The newly abandoned hospital cried out for respectable tenants, decided Mr. Croup, and so they slaughtered the previous inhabitants (a family of potters who worked with the ooze that congealed underneath the railway tracks) and set up a telephone.

That very evening, they watched the Night Market from the Buckingham Palace turrets.

"It feels good to have a home, doesn't it, Mr. Vandemar?"

Mr. Vandemar had finished dismembering a cat and was sucking on its intestines. "Just like old times, Mr. Croup."

**The Tang Dynasty, 3346/3406-11-27:**

Emperor Zhongzhong stumbled down the palace corridor, panting with pain at the stitch in his side. He was no longer young, and though his pursuers followed him with leisurely footsteps, they always seemed just a stone's throw away.

"It doesn't do to keep a perfectly competent Empress from the throne, does it, _xiong_ Nian?"

"No it don't, _xiong_ Taotie."

Another corner. And another, down into the bowels of the palace that the emperor knew better than any person alive. Yet the voices drew nearer, one flat as mud and one oily as a pig carcass.

"Do you know what she would have done to you, _wansui_ Zhongzhong? She would merely have poisoned your soup. Luckily for us, my associate and I managed to convince her that feeding you your feet one by one would be better..."

"Hurting?"

"... _recompense_ for twelve long years of perversions and nightly humiliation."

"Not very nice of him, _xiong_ Taotie."

"Indeed not, _xiong_ Nian, though we are not such charming beings as to be able to judge his odious actions with proper moral rectitude. Say, did you perchance bring your favorite sheep shears?" The nasty, oily voice was very near, just around the corner.

"Must have forgot them."

"Really? Well then, we'll have to make do with what we can find. A shard of glass, a rusty spike..."

Zhongzhong realized that he had nowhere else to run: though there was a window high above the decorative vase at the corridor's end, it was too far and too small to squeeze through. He drew himself upright. He would die honorably.

As the emperor turned and saw the faces of his murderers, he began to shake uncontrollably, reaching out for the nearest upright object for support. The vase fell from its pedestal and shattered.

"That _is_ a lovely specimen of porcelain, wouldn't you say, _xiong_ Nian?"

**The Final Year of Priam's Reign**

"What joy!" cried Kirkos as they strode away from the burning city, ashes falling in their wake. "What bliss! What satisfaction to deliver all the destruction, devastation, carnage and bloodshed a client could ask for! And did you see how they followed us? How they slaughtered the children; how they raped the women on the temple floor? The gusto with which men will despoil, damage and destroy each other is indeed a wonder and joy to behold!"

"I like it when their skin pops in the fire," affirmed Lukos cheerfully.

**The Year of Nine Whale Hunts**

The thing that had once been a man lay in limp in the corner. Outside the bone-and-hide hut, the wind whistled with the first serious snow of winter.

Tiriganiaq (who never had been a man) turned to his companion (who had never been a man either) and said, "Well, that's it. You've broken him. Our plaything will never make those delightful squeaks again. Our hibernatory amusement is ruined!"

"I got bored," replied Amaruq, guiltily cleaning bits of brain from his teeth.

Tiriganiaq examined their victim's possessions - dried seal meat and a bone carving of a bear. "So I gathered. And just what," he sniffed, "did you plan on doing during all these dark days to come? Digging in the snow for skinny little rabbits? Those don't last half as long, you know, as these plump, luscious specimens." He snapped the carving in half and chewed thoughtfully.

Amaruq sucked on an eyeball. "We can always get another one."

"They've moved on, don't you know. Off to their dainty icehouses to warm their lovely little limbs, to make love under the furs and beget fat children."

"We could trap them in there. Hurt them." Amaruq bared his teeth in what he thought was a winning smile. It was ghastly.

"And how long would they last with you masticating their craniums whenever the whim took you? No, I'll think of something."

Amaruq shrugged and went outside to dig for rabbit warrens. Skinny or not, their bones still made a satisfying crunch.

"What we really need," mused Tiriganiaq, "is a job."

**Once:**

The hunter walked homeward as the moon rose overhead, the beast's pelt heavy over his shoulder. He thought of the dark-eyed girl with beads in her hair, whose favor he would surely win with such a gift. He did not notice the figure stalking slowly up behind him.

Darting forward, the fox nipped at the hunter's ankle. The hunter yelled and jumped, but did not drop his burden. Delighted with this response, the fox leapt and snatched the hunter's wounded hand with its teeth. Refusing to set down the Beast's pelt, the hunter could neither fight back nor run away with his usual speed; instead, he hobbled forward while the fox tore all the fingers from his hand.

The fox lay down to feast on these delicate morsels, watching the hunter carry his burden over the hill as fast as he could. The fox could afford to wait: the hunter was losing strength and the pelt weighted him down. When it had done with the fingers, the fox could easily catch him again. It would be fun to see how many strips of flesh could be removed before The hunter could go no further; then the fox could tear open his body and play with his innards.

From over the hill the fox heard a terrible scream. Leaving the fingerbones, it ran to the top of the ridge, just to see a wolf's powerful jaws snap the hunter's neck. The fox ran down the slope, yelping his displeasure at a game well wasted. The wolf growled and made as if to fight over the meal, but was distracted by the hunter's moan: he was not yet dead.

The fox and the wolf looked at the hunter's mutilated body and then at each other. The fox yapped, the wolf answered with a low rumble, and the two moved warily to opposite sides of the body. The fox spent the night chewing lazily on the unfortunate hunter's toes while the wolf tore hungrily at his face.

The hunter did not die for two days. His body lay by the beast's pelt lay in the sun, forgotten by all but the dark-eyed girl with beads in her hair.

The fox and the wolf were over the hills and far away.

 


End file.
